Nasa Wizards` Legendary Infallibility Blew Up With Shuttle

March 02, 1986|By Storer Rowley.

WASHINGTON — Until 1 minute, 13 seconds into the space shuttle Challenger`s last flight, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was the embodiment of American high technology, from the wonder of its gleaming white orbiters to the wizardry of its whirring backup computers.

But in that 73d second of Challenger`s doomed launch, the cool image of technical competence that has characterized NASA`s recent history exploded along with six astronauts and teacher Christa McAuliffe in an orange fireball over the Atlantic Ocean.

In the month that has passed since the world learned in one searing instant of the fallibility of both man and machine, America`s dream of space exploration has been marred by uncomfortable testimony that human error and lapses in judgment contributed to the agency`s worst disaster.

The ill-fated decision to launch Challenger in record cold weather came despite separate warnings from engineers for the manufacturer of the orbiter and the maker of the shuttle`s solid-fuel booster rockets about the effects of ice and low temperatures.

NASA launch directors rejected one of those warnings, and the other was overruled by company executives pressed by NASA to defend the data assembled by company engineers. The program itself was under pressure because of its legacy of canceled launches and broken promises about the dependability of the shuttle.

The evidence so far strongly suggests the unprecedented cold caused the failure of rubber seals at a seam on Challenger`s right booster rocket, which led to a burn-through of the rocket casing and the explosion, a scenario foretold in a way in the objections of the solid-rocket engineers.

Moreover, as members of a commission appointed by President Reagan fan out across the country this week to gather more evidence of what went wrong technically, they increasingly are concerned over testimony that critically important decisions about components whose failure would be catastrophic were routinely being made by middle-level NASA officials.

``It`s really two investigations now,`` said one commission insider, one into ``NASA management and flight safety procedures,`` and one on ``the technical cause of the accident.``

The chairman of the presidential commission, former Secretary of State William Rogers, capped three days of public hearings here last week by sharply rebuking the four senior NASA officials who made the decision to launch Challenger.

Speaking for his fellow commissioners, Rogers declared the decision-making process was ``clearly flawed.`` He pointed to witnesses who testifed they raised red flags about the launch with middle-level agency officials who did not convey those concerns to their superiors at NASA, a sign the bureaucracy was not set up to make the kinds of decisions that had to be made. ``You eliminate the element of good judgment and common sense,`` said Rogers, lecturing the four key NASA officials who were not informed about the potential problems. The process, he added, ``should require people to take stands, and you should have a record on it.``

Rogers criticism was aimed at the heart of what has become, perhaps, the most complicated element involved in the launch of space shuttles--the process that leads to the decision that everything is airworthy and the rockets are ready to be fired. This decision involves a confusing mix of technology and judgment.

Time and again, shuttle launches have been stopped by technology designed to pinpoint problems and make decisions automatically. Humans make those decisions indirectly, according to NASA, by developing critical ``red line``

items that are programmed into computers.

The computers sense overheating or a drop in output from the craft`s auxiliary power units, for example. Or a red light appears on a console indicating one of the computers itself is malfunctioning. And the entire program comes to a halt, automatically until the problem can be resolved.

These systems are based on weeks upon weeks of discussion that leads to the formulation of the 2,000 or so ``red line`` issues. The programs work so well that computer-prompted delays in launch have seemed an almost inevitable part of the shuttle program. They have to work well, NASA says, because no human is capable of handling all of the information involved.

But there is another kind of decision that occurs beyond the automatic conclusions reached by computers. And that is where human beings actively enter the picture. NASA specialists assess a whole spectrum of conditions before a launch and reach conclusions about whether firing the rockets would be prudent.

Those are the kind of consultations that have become the focus of the presidential investigating commission. In themselves, according to NASA, such discussions are not unusual. However, it was unusual to have so serious a matter as that caused by the cold temperatures debated on the evening of a launch.